The above view, therefore, was for the most part abandoned in favour of other, apparently more natural, explanations. Of these we would mention, as a second theory, the biological hypothesis of Andrew Lang. This author assumes that the younger brothers of a joint family were driven out by the stronger and older ones in order to ward off any want that might arise from the living together of a large number of brothers and sisters, and that these younger brothers were thus obliged to marry outside the group. Even this, however, is not an adequate theory of exogamy, since it does not explain how the custom has come to apply also to the older members of the family group. As a final hypothesis, we may mention one which may perhaps be described as specifically sociological. In its fundamental aspects it was proposed by MacLennan, the investigator who also gave us the word 'exogamy.' MacLennan does not regard exogamy as having originated in times of peace, nor even as representing voluntarily established norms of custom. He derives it from war, and in so doing he appeals to the testimony both of history and of legend. As is well known, even the Iliad, the greatest epic of the past, portrays as an essential part of its theme a marriage by capture. The dissension between Achilles and Agamemnon arose from the capture of Briseis, for whom the two leaders of the Achæans quarrelled with each other. According to MacLennan, the capture of a woman from a strange tribe represents the earliest exogamy. The rape of the Sabines is another incident suggesting the same conclusion. True, this is not an event of actual history. Nevertheless, legend reflects the customs and ideas of the past. Now, in the case under discussion, it is clear that marriage by capture involves a foreign and hostile tribe, for this is the relation which the Sabines originally sustained to the Romans. A significant indication of the connection between marriage by capture and war with hostile tribes occurs also in Deuteronomy (ch. xxi.), where the law commands the Israelites: 'If in war you see a beautiful woman and desire her in marriage, take her with you. Let her for several weeks bewail her relatives and her home, and then marry her. But if you do not wish to make her your wife, then let her go free; you shall not sell her into slavery.' This is a remarkable passage in that it forbids the keeping and the selling of female slaves, but, on the other hand, permits marriage with a woman of a strange tribe. A parallel is found in Judges (ch. xxi.), where it is related that the elders of Israel, being prevented by an oath to Jahve from giving their own daughters in marriage to the children of Benjamin, advised the latter to fall, from ambush, upon a Canaanitic tribe and to steal its maidens.
In spite of all these proofs, exogamy and the capture of women from strange tribes differ as regards one feature of paramount importance. In both legend and history the captured woman is universally of a strange tribe, whereas totemic exogamy never occurs except between clans of the same tribe. Added to this is a further consideration. The above-mentioned passage from Deuteronomy certainly presupposes that the Israelite who captures a wife in warfare with a strange tribe already possesses a wife from among his own tribe. This is his chief wife, in addition to whom he may take the strange woman as a secondary wife. We may refer to Hagar, the slave, and to Sarah, Abraham's rightful wife, who belonged to his own tribe. The resemblance between exogamy and the capture of women in warfare is so far from being conclusive that exogamy is permitted only between clans of the same tribal group; hence, in cases where there are four or eight subgroups, it is not even allowed between members of the two tribal halves. Indeed, the essential characteristic of exogamous tribal organization, marriage between specific social groups, is entirely lacking in the marriage by capture that results from war. Moreover, the woman married under exogamous conditions is either the only wife or, if she is the first, she is the chief wife; in the case of marriage by capture in war, the captured woman is the secondary wife.
[5. MODES OF CONTRACTING MARRIAGE.]
Though the theory that exogamy originated in the capture of women in warfare is clearly untenable, it has without doubt seized upon one element of truth. Marriage by capture may also occur within one and the same tribe, and under relatively savage conditions this happens very frequently. Indeed, it is precisely in the case of the Australians, to judge from reports, that such marriage is probably as old as the institution of exogamy itself, if not older. Early accounts, in particular, give abundant testimony to this effect. That later writings give less prominence to the phenomenon does not imply its disappearance. The decreased emphasis is due rather to the fact that in more recent years the attention of investigators has been directed almost exclusively to the newly discovered conditions of tribal organization. Even on a more advanced and semi-cultural stage we find struggles for the possession of a wife. The struggle, however, is regularly carried on, not between members of different groups, much less between entirely strange peoples of widely differing language and culture, but between members of one and the same tribe. Two or more members of a tribe fall into a quarrel for the possession of a woman who, though not belonging to their own clan, is nevertheless a member of a neighbouring clan of the same tribe. Such conditions are doubtless to be traced back to earliest times. The victor wins the woman for himself. The custom of marriage by capture has left its traces even down to the present, in practices that have for the most part assumed a playful character. Originally, however, these practices were without doubt of a serious nature, as were all such forms of play that originated in earlier customs. Just as ancient exogamous restrictions are still operative in the prohibitions which the statutes of all cultural peoples place on the marriage of relatives, so the influence of marriage by capture is reflected in some of the usages attending the consummation of marriage, as well as in various customs, such as the purchase of wives and its converse, the dowry, which succeeded marriage by capture. Moreover, the fact that marriage by capture occasionally occurs even in primitive pretotemic culture and that it is practised beyond that circle of tribal organization whose totemic character can be positively proved, indicates that it is presumably older than an exogamy regulated by strict norms of custom. It is just in Australia, that region of the earth where, to a certain extent, the various stages of development of exogamy still exist side by side, that we find other cultural conditions which make it practically impossible to hold that marriage by capture originated in warfare between tribes. Though the woman who is here most likely to become an object of dissension between brothers or other kinsmen may not belong to the same clan and the same totem as the latter, she is nevertheless a member of one of the totems belonging to one of the most closely related clans. A woman of their own clan is too close to the men of the group to be desired as a wife; a woman of a strange tribe, too remote. In the ordinary course of events, moreover, there is no opportunity for meeting women of other tribes. The slave who is captured in war and carried away as a concubine appears only at a far later stage of culture. The original struggle for the possession of a woman, therefore, was not carried on with members of a strange tribe, as though it were to this that the woman belonged. Doubtless also it was only to a slight degree a struggle with the captured woman herself—this perhaps represents a later transference that already paves the way for the phenomena of mere mock-struggles. The real struggle took place between fellow-tribesmen, between men of the same clan, both of whom desired the woman. There is a possibility, of course, that the kinsmen of the woman might oppose her capture. This aspect of the struggle, however, like the opposition of the woman herself, was probably unknown prior to the cultural stage, when the female members of the clan came to be valued, as they are among agricultural and nomadic peoples, because of the services which they render to the family. The theory just outlined, moreover, readily explains the further development of the conditions that precede the consummation of marriage, whereas the theory that marriage by capture originated in warfare is in this respect a complete failure. Valuable information concerning the later stages in the development of the marriage by capture which originates during a state of tribal peace, is again furnished by Australian ethnology. Among these peoples, the original capture has in many instances passed over into an exchange in which the suitor offers his own sister to the brother of the woman whom he desires for himself. If this proposal for exchange is accepted and he has thereby won the kinsmen of the woman to his side, his fellow-contestants may as well give up the struggle. Thus, exogamous marriage by capture here gives way to exogamous marriage by barter, an arrangement in entire harmony with the development of trade in general, which always begins with barter. At the same time, the form of this barter is the simplest conceivable: a woman is exchanged for a woman; the objects of exchange are the same and there is no necessity for estimating the values in order to equalize them.
There may be some, however, who do not possess sisters whom they may offer in exchange to the men of other clans. What then occurs? In this case also it is in Australia that we find the beginnings of a new arrangement. In place of offering his sister in exchange, the suitor presents a gift to the parents of the bride, at first to the mother. Gift takes the place of barter. Since there is no woman who may be bartered in exchange, a present is given as her equivalent. Thus we have exogamous marriage by gift, and, as the custom becomes more general and the gift is fixed by agreement, this becomes exogamous marriage by purchase. The latter, however, probably occurs only at a later stage of culture. The man buys the woman from her parents. Sometimes, as we know from the Biblical example of Jacob and from numerous ethnological parallels, he enters into service in order to secure her—he labours for a time in the house of her parents. In an age unfamiliar with money, one who has possessions purchases the woman with part of his herd or of the produce of his fields. Whoever owns no such property, as, for instance, the poor man or the dependent son, purchases the woman with his labour.
Marriage by purchase, however, does not represent the terminus of the development. On the contrary, it prepares the way for marriage by contract, an important advance that was already, to a certain extent, made by the Greeks, and later particularly by the Romans. Not purchase, but a contract between him who concludes the marriage and the parents of the woman—this is an arrangement which still finds acceptance with us to-day. Now, the marriage contract determines the conditions for both bride and groom, and eventually also the marriage portion which the man brings to the union, as well as the dowry of the wife. As soon, therefore, as property considerations come to be dominant within the field of marriage, marriage by contract opens the way for a twofold marriage by purchase. The man may either buy the woman, as was done in the case of the earlier marriage by purchase, or the woman may buy the man with the dowry that she brings. At first, in the days of marriage by capture, the struggle with fellow-clansmen or with strangers was of decisive importance; at a later time, however, differences in property, rank, and occupation came to be the determining factors in the case of marriage. Thus, if we regard marriage by gift as a mode of marriage by purchase, though, in part, more primitive, and, in part, more spontaneous, our summary reveals three main stages: marriage by capture, marriage by purchase, and marriage by contract. Between these modes of marriage, of course, there are transitional forms, which enable us to regard the course of development as constant. The fact, however, that the entire development bears the character of a more or less thorough-going exogamy, is due to the oldest of these modes of marriage—a mode which, as we may assume, was prevalent at the beginning of the totemic age. This is a form of marriage by capture in which the woman belonged, not to a strange tribe, but to a neighbouring clan of the same tribe, or to one with which there were other lines of intercourse. When capture disappeared, the exogamy to which it gave rise remained. The old customs connected with the former passed over, though more and more in the form of play, into the now peaceful mode of marriage by purchase; their survivals continued here and there even in the last form of marriage, that by contract.
[6. THE CAUSES OF TOTEMIC EXOGAMY.]
How does this general development of the modes of marriage account for those peculiar laws of exogamy which are universally characteristic of totemic culture, representing strict norms of custom that forbid all marriage except that between specific clans of a tribe, or even only between pairs of totem groups of different clans? Were these marriage ordinances, which have evidently arisen in various places independently of one another, intentionally invented? Or are they the natural outcome of totemic tribal organization, resulting from its inherent conditions, just as did the laws of dual tribal division from the natural growth and partition of the tribes?